The creator of the comic-book series American Splendor presents a collection of his finest works, including his zany commentaries on the complexities of modern life, all illustrated by some of the leading artists in the field. Adult.
Written by Harvey Pekar Cover by Dean Haspiel Art by Haspiel, Eddie Campbell, Ty Templeton and others Harvey Pekar returns to celebrate 30 years of autobiographical comics with his newest volume collecting the 4-issue acclaimed miniseries. Advance-solicited; on sale April 7 - 136 pg, B&W, $14.99 US - MATURE READERS
Originally published in 2002, American Splendor: The Residential Architecture of Horace Trumbauer is the first and only extensive study of this master creator of the American Great House. This revised edition features three new chapters and over 50 new colour photographs.
Harvey Pekar once again brings us his unique blend of humor and pathos in this new collection of his autobiographical comic books. Black-and-white illustrations throughout.
Gathered here are the collected works of the titans of adults comics — legendary underground cartoonist R. Crumb and the "high priest of comic-book naturalism" (Newsweek) Harvey Pekar. The comic collision of these underground luminaries is funny, obsessive, ever-so-slightly neurotic, but always biting and honest.
From off the streets of Cleveland, the amazing and occasionally regrettable true-life adventures of Harvey Pekar, cineaste. Harvey Pekar is from Cleveland. This much you know. But with the release of American Splendor, the indie hit film based on his comic of the same name, the world discovered Harvey in earnest. Once Harvey was content merely to flirt with fame. But when fame wanted a commitment, he found himself a household name. Sort of. And, to tell you the truth, it’s starting to bug the hell out of him. An original, incisive graphic novel featuring the talents of R. Crumb, Gary Dumm, Mark Zingarelli, and other artists, Our Movie Year chronicles a whirlwind twelve months in the life of Harvey Pekar. It recounts his rise from the filing room at the Cleveland VA hospital to the red carpet at Cannes, Sundance, the Oscars, and beyond–where Harvey won awards, accolades, and the promise of a bigger paycheck. A lot of funny things can happen in a year, and many of them happened to Harvey. And now everyone gets to read about them in Our Movie Year.
At a time when the expanded projection of US political, military, economic and cultural power draws intensified global concern, understanding how that country understands itself seems more important than ever. This collection of new critical essays tackles this old problem in a new way, by examining some of the hundreds of US films that announce themselves as titularly 'American'. From early travelogues to contemporary comedies, national nomination has been an abiding characteristic of American motion pictures, heading the work of Porter, Guy-Blaché, DeMille, Capra, Sternberg, Vidor, Minnelli and Mankiewicz. More recently, George Lucas, Paul Schrader, John Landis and Edward James Olmos have made their own contributions to Hollywood’s Americana. What does this national branding signify? Which versions of Americanism are valorized, and which marginalized or excluded? Out of which social and historical contexts do they emerge, and for and by whom are they constructed? Edited by Mandy Merck, the collection contains detailed analyses of such films as The Vanishing American, American Madness, An American in Paris, American Graffiti, American Gigolo, American Pie and many more.
In the 1980s, a sea change occurred in comics. Fueled by Art Spiegel- man and Françoise Mouly's avant-garde anthology Raw and the launch of the Love & Rockets series by Gilbert, Jaime, and Mario Hernandez, the decade saw a deluge of comics that were more autobiographical, emotionally realistic, and experimental than anything seen before. These alternative comics were not the scatological satires of the 1960s underground, nor were they brightly colored newspaper strips or superhero comic books. In Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature, Charles Hatfield establishes the parameters of alternative comics by closely examining long-form comics, in particular the graphic novel. He argues that these are fundamentally a literary form and offers an extensive critical study of them both as a literary genre and as a cultural phenomenon. Combining sharp-eyed readings and illustrations from particular texts with a larger understanding of the comics as an art form, this book discusses the development of specific genres, such as autobiography and history. Alternative Comics analyzes such seminal works as Spiegelman's Maus, Gilbert Hernandez's Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories, and Justin Green's Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary. Hatfield explores how issues outside of cartooning-the marketplace, production demands, work schedules-can affect the final work. Using Hernandez's Palomar as an example, he shows how serialization may determine the way a cartoonist structures a narrative. In a close look at Maus, Binky Brown, and Harvey Pekar's American Splendor, Hatfield teases out the complications of creating biography and autobiography in a substantially visual medium, and shows how creators approach these issues in radically different ways.
"The robust Jewish community of Cleveland, Ohio is the largest Midwestern Jewish community with about 80,000 Jewish residents. Historically, it has been one of the largest hubs of American Jewish life outside of the East Coast. Yet there is a critical gap in the literature relating to Jewish Cleveland, its suburbs, and the Midwestern Jewish experience. Cleveland's Jews in the Urban Midwest remedies this gap, and adds to an emerging subfield in American Jewish history that moves away from the East Coast to explore Jewish life across the United States, in cities including Chicago and Detroit, and across regions like the West Coast. Cleveland's Jews in the Urban Midwest features ten diverse studies from prominent international scholars, addressing a wide range of subjects and ultimately enhancing our understanding of regional, urban, and Jewish American history. Focusing on the twentieth century specifically, the historians included in this collection address critical questions about Jewish Cleveland in the history of the United States. Essays investigate Jewish philanthropy, comics, gender, religious identity and education from the perspectives of both Reform and Orthodox Jewish communities, participation in social service organizations, and the Soviet Jewish movement, among other subjects, and reveal the different roles these subjects play in shaping Jewish communities over time. Uniquely, this is a work of regional history that engages fully in parallel conversations in Jewish history and urban history, making the volume a key addition to these three dynamic fields"--Provided by publisher.
Covering genres from adventure and fantasy to horror, science fiction, and superheroes, this guide maps the vast terrain of graphic novels, describing and organizing titles to help librarians balance their graphic novel collections and direct patrons to read-alikes. New subgenres, new authors, new artists, and new titles appear daily in the comic book and manga world, joining thousands of existing titles—some of which are very popular and well-known to the enthusiastic readers of books in this genre. How do you determine which graphic novels to purchase, and which to recommend to teen and adult readers? This updated guide is intended to help you start, update, or maintain a graphic novel collection and advise readers about the genre. Containing mostly new information as compared to the previous edition, the book covers iconic super-hero comics and other classic and contemporary crime fighter-based comics; action and adventure comics, including prehistoric, heroic, explorer, and Far East adventure as well as Western adventure; science fiction titles that encompass space opera/fantasy, aliens, post-apocalyptic themes, and comics with storylines revolving around computers, robots, and artificial intelligence. There are also chapters dedicated to fantasy titles; horror titles, such as comics about vampires, werewolves, monsters, ghosts, and the occult; crime and mystery titles regarding detectives, police officers, junior sleuths, and true crime; comics on contemporary life, covering romance, coming-of-age stories, sports, and social and political issues; humorous titles; and various nonfiction graphic novels.